Wesley Hilliard
Four short immersive videos are available for Apple Vision Pro users, and after nearly two months on the market, a fifth has arrived in the form of a five-minute MLS ad.
Apple Vision Pro can play 180-degree 8K 3D video that takes over the wearer's vision. These are called immersive experiences and are a technical achievement.
However, that technical achievement may also be an Achilles heel for the platform if it's slow or difficult to produce. More immersive content is absolutely on the way, but Apple Vision Pro owners have noticed that the scant library hasn't grown since the February 2 debut.
Approaching two months later, the first new addition to Apple's immersive video library isn't a new episode of one of the four existing experiences. Instead, it's a five-minute highlight reel of the MLS Cup that took place in December 2023.
The MLS Cup video is spectacular and exemplifies how the future of sports and immersive content will be transformative. But that was already expected — content built for Apple Vision Pro is amazing.
Those who purchased the Apple Vision Pro on launch day expected the product to have a slow build-up as content and apps are built for the platform. However, no one could have guessed that Apple would have so little content two months in, and there's no sign of more in the near future.
Apple Vision Pro immersive videoAs was said in our one month Apple Vision Pro review — Apple needs to evangelize or outright pay for content. Otherwise, content creators don't have much incentive to build for a platform with under a million users.
The sizzle reel, still available in the Apple Vision Pro TV app, showcases multiple episodes of the coming immersive experiences. But if it takes three months to put together a five-minute highlight reel, a full episodic documentary could take years at this rate.
WWDC 2024 is coming, and with it, visionOS 2. There will likely be announcements related to Apple Vision Pro's content library and apps at the event — at least, we can hope so.
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10 Comments
Guess what the follow-up will be. Let alone the future….
I do think sports and venue immersion feeds are the future for some of the VisionPro demand. There may be technical issues, i.e. the number of immersive cameras available, their expense & difficulty in manufacturing that we are unaware of, etc. It would be great if future iPhones could evolve to take not only 3D but immersion experiences as well. I suspect this is a ways off.
People knew what they signed up for when they bought this thing. Test subjects.
It's less than 2 months since launch. It takes longer than 2 months to produce quality content. Blue Planet 2 took 4 years to make:
https://www.livekindly.com/bbcs-blue-planet-2/
Average Hollywood movie is just over 1 year of production/post-production:
https://filmstry.net/blog/2019/08/20/how-long-does-the-average-hollywood-movie-take-to-make/
It would have made sense to film 2024 Apple TV+ Originals in Immersive format like Severance season 2 but it depends on if they wanted to maintain some secrecy around Vision Pro. They might only have started using it on productions after the June 2023 announcement.
For now, watching normal movies and existing 3D movies is worthwhile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisof6XWtII